Are you a little unimpressed by the videos of Nintendo 64 games remade in Unreal Engine? Do you think that their sights should be set a little higher? Maybe you'll finally be happy now that the BBC has just revealed that not only is their gorgeous Tokyo-based studio, which they're using for their Olympics coverage, is not actually in Tokyo — it was entirely made in Epic Games' Unreal Engine.
The two presenters, Dan Walker and Sam Quek, recently hosted a behind-the-scenes tour of their elaborate lie of a studio. It turns out that, because of the pandemic, the BBC didn't actually send their talent off to Tokyo, preferring to instead keep them in the Salford office and make a lovely and totally fake Japanese city background on top of a green screen.
Admittedly, it's very impressive. As long as Walker and Quek don't move around too much — because they'll clip into stuff — or wear green and white clothing, the illusion is complete, looking like they're sitting in a very swanky office with a glass floor, balanced precariously above a sandy zen garden. They can even change the time of day!
Walker introduces the idea of the studio being made in Unreal Engine by saying: "Now, if you're a gamer, you might think it looks a little familiar," which had us scratching our heads a little bit. Although Unreal Engine remakes of old games are often recognisable by their weirdly realistic lighting on cartoonish characters, we can't say that the Tokyo background reminds us of anything.
"The set is rendered in the same engine which produces Fortnite," Walker continues. Ah, yes. That explains the giant banana man on the horizon.
Banana man aside, it is very impressive, with real-time rendering allowing moving cameras and on-the-fly adjusted perspective, as well as virtual masking which is able to hide the crew.
We just hope that we're going to get a fort-building competition in the next Olympics. Or, at the very least, a cameo from Ariana Grande.
[source youtu.be]
Comments 40
Removed - unconstructive
Didn't mando start doing it first?
But which version??
@KateGray "Or, at the very least, a cameo from Ariana Grande."
In Paris 2024? Unlikely. Maybe in Los Angeles 2028.
It was very very impressive. Only realised it wasn’t real when it was pointed out.
@BloodNinja Savage 😂😂😂😂 that was a good one
@KeyBladeMaster-Dan I aim to please LOL
Kinda sad how all coverage of things like news and sports takes place in a environment that is revealed to be completely fake, with none of the authenticity it once had of the real place.
if this is how it really looked, it looks atrocious. Like PS1/N64.
I had no idea it wasn't real! Props to the BBC, it looked awesome!
@chapu2006 ……..you are aware of the reasons that they couldn’t go to Tokyo aren’t you?
Honestly, it's pretty terrifying how easily they can now invent a fake reality and put it right in front of all of us and we can't even tell the difference, believing it to be real with our own eyes, anymore. The implications of that fact should be utterly horrifying to everyone.
@BloodNinja Aaaaand of course you're comment was censored 😒
@KeyBladeMaster-Dan We can’t say anything about the BBC??!! They’ve made some pretty scathing remarks on their news channel, nobody deletes them!
I guess humor is no longer constructive! Either that or moderation is getting extremely lazy. I’m starting to think if something gets reported, it just gets removed by a bot, at this point.
@BloodNinja Man why they have to do you like that?
@Snatcher It’s their platform, they can do what they like to all of us comment peasants, heh. (Please see the joke, mods, might as well add that every time I make a quip, now)
@BloodNinja stating your own opinion about the economical well being (or lack thereof), supplied with various examples is also not welcome on this website.
On topic: it does not look real to me be honest but Intresting nonetheless
@BrintaPap He didn't even actually say anything, he made a joke and they took it off.
@BrintaPap I made a joke about BBC being fake, which is a well-known and over-used joke. Hardly original, I must admit, but it fit the context of the fake background. What economical well being, etc, are you referring to?
A country whose elections are always followed by the entire world needs to get (basic) stuff like drinking water and health care fixed, which should not exactly be a problem since they have the highest GPD in the world… I don’t think I can name the country by name but I think you know which one it is by now.
@BloodNinja a lot of sites are more sensitive with modding nowdays.
I am not from the UK, but I have few friends there so I knew the joke you made about BBC.
However times change and nowdays what was a joke is something a lot of anit-vaxxers seems to say, probably the reason the removed your comment because of how nowdays THAT is what most people mean.
It does make me sad, same in my country where a lot of jokes from the past are now not done because of various stupid reasons, the pandemic being one of them.
Anyhow probably that is the reason of the removal.
@Rayquaza2510 Oh, was it misconstrued as a “fake news” thing from my country’s gloriously out of touch ex-President? That hadn’t occurred to me, since the joke about BBC being fake has been a thing for the past 30 years, to my knowledge. I first heard it on a Flying Circus episode. And I mean the kind of fake as in, not genuine or sincere. I don’t mean fake as in not real. Either way, I stand by what I said, and I found the joke funny. Not gonna change my humor because my homeland (England, God save the Queen) doesn’t like digs about the BBC, of all things. A dig is a small joke at someone else’s expense, in case someone needs extra clarification!
@BloodNinja I read your comments and I always have a good laugh, but recently I've noticed that you and others have been censored a lot more frequently.
Fun fact: LazyTown rendered its backgrounds in Unreal too
@Pat_trick Thank you, I am just trying to have fun. Obviously, I don’t always hit the mark, but I have noticed that many comments from other users that are totally benign are getting removed, the past couple weeks. Some of my recently removed comments were trolly, I will admit that. I was fighting off personal attacks from another user, without directly resorting to be insulting, so I deserved that. Maybe they have a new mod that is very by-the-book, or something?
@BloodNinja I saw your joke and there was nothing wrong with it. 🤷🏻♂️ There certainly does seem to be some humourless bores moderating the comments lately.
Epic actually went around alot of British companies showing off their new engine, and trying to get them to "buy in". They even teamed with Namco to try and sell Unreal to that very well known British areoplane engineering company (this one failed at the time). Some of the aspects of Unreal 5 were implemented with feedback from technical illustrators in those fields. Especially with being able to drop massive poly count models into it then manipulate in realtime via the partial render system.
@Clyde_Radcliffe Indeed!
Wait? Bananaman? Eric is that you?!
@Clyde_Radcliffe I didn't ether, and the reason it say's it was removed is stupid.
I'm honestly surprised anybody thought they were actually on location, because to my eye, it looks obviously artificial. The Unreal Engine is capable of so much more, for example, the completely convincing photorealistic imagery you see in The Mandalorian, but I guess this was done on a much smaller budget.
While cool in concept (and I'm sure it took a lot of work), it looks pretty terrible to me tbh.
Weather Channel in the US been doing this for a good while now
People are way too sensitive these days…
Did they have a “floaty” feel to them like all Unreal games?
@nessisonett Yes. But even if they could, they probably wouldn't... though it's easy to see why and the studio did look pretty spectacular up until they revealed it to be fake. Why spoil the authenticity by telling us this?
@chapu2006 The BBC go to the Olympics every time it’s on. They had a team of former sportspeople over there anyway to interview the athletes so it’s not like they had no presence in Tokyo. Just due to restrictions they couldn’t have the same numbers. Mark my words, they’ll have the same presence at Paris as they did in previous years.
@BloodNinja I didn't get to see your joke but I know from your other comments that you're a reasonable fellow.
Jokes being removed as "unconstructive" is hilarious in itself. Do they expect us to post scathing social satire every time we're inclined to make a joke? Lol. What happened to the good ol' "for the lulz".
@nessisonett Good to know.
@pinta_vodki Thanks! And agreed totally. No “lulz” around here, I guess!
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